


ashes denote that fire was

by idlewheel



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2018-10-25
Packaged: 2019-08-06 13:46:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16388843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idlewheel/pseuds/idlewheel
Summary: a fire has different stages and so does jake and amy's relationship





	ashes denote that fire was

**Author's Note:**

> title from emily dickinson.

_**stage one: incipient**_. _heat, oxygen and a source combine resulting in a fire. if a fire is sensed within this stage, it has a greater chance of being extinguished._

Amy stares into the night, trying to spot one of the three perps they’re waiting out for. It’s not a big case, nothing but a couple of tax evaders, but her heart beats loudly in her ears. This is not an effect of the case, however, but the heat of the person next to her. There are exactly one foot and eight inches separating them, nothing but the thick console from their undercover car and an old half-eaten pretzel Scully had forgotten. And still, Amy feels his heat as if his skin is touching hers. 

This is the first case they've worked on since he's been back; the first time it's been just the two of them in nearly months. It's a strange feeling being so close to him and it's even more bizarre just how quiet and still the air is between them. The thick air billowing like a fog that takes over the car.

She swallows thickly and gazes at him from the corner of her eye, trying not to move a muscle, so he doesn’t realize that she’s not-so-casually gazing at him. It’s been three weeks since he’s returned from being undercover and she still can't believe he’s back. She’s still struggling to get used to living in a world in which Jake Peralta told her he likes her (twice). She tried to get used to it before, when he was deep in the mob, but her thoughts quickly went from his confession, to Teddy, to Jake, to thinking of Jake in trouble, to thinking of Jake before he left, to the confession, and so on and so forth. 

So, she never got to directly address the tornado that was churning in her heart. 

They haven’t spoken of that night two weeks prior, when he told her that his feelings towards her hadn’t faded in the months he's been gone. And Amy hasn't told him that it's been a week since she's seen Teddy. Not that they spoke much about him before, but now, now that she knows just how he feels, she knows that speaking of Teddy would be like pushing upon a bruise. His bruise.

There is no need for her to tell him why she hasn’t spoken to Teddy or about the last time she’s pushed him away like now. Or how in both instances, this confusion that rejected Teddy was likely fueled by him.

She yearns for the time when she didn’t think of Jake without remembering his hopeful eyes outside the precinct. When she didn’t feel his eyes following after her as she walked to Captain Holt’s office. Much less the fact, that she noticed that her eyes followed him, too.

She spots some movement from the corner of her eye and her eyes quickly dart back out the window. It turns out to be nothing but a stray cat making its away and Amy lets out a little sigh, the only sound in the almost thirty minutes of their shared silence. 

“So, how did your date with Katie go?” she asks, hoping to fill the empty space. Only cringing when she realizes that her attempt of not talking about this thing between them is foiled by her speaking of his attempt at moving on. She knew Rosa had given Jake Katie’s number, had found out when Boyle had very loudly wished Jake luck on his date yesterday.

Jake makes no acknowledgement of her fumble, however, and he merely shrugs. “Not what I expected. She’s very Rosa-like. I am eighty percent sure her real name isn’t even 'Katie'.”

Amy laughs and Jake joins in after a second. “I wouldn’t be surprised,” she says and grins at him. Jake pauses for a second, the laughter dying in his throat and the her laughter quickly follows. 

“Amy,” he begins and her heart stops. She knows that voice; she knows it’s a voice void of joking and void of anything but that sincerity that makes her heart heavy. It’s like a train is barreling towards her, but she’s unable to stop it. She wants to cover her ears, but can't.

Or maybe, she won’t. 

The look and the sound of his voice remind her so much of that time outside the precinct. It reeks of that confession that he handed to her and that she carried like heavy rocks in her pockets since that day. She wants to hear what he has to say, and the thought of this scares her.

There’s a lull as he awaits her response and it’s as if the world has stopped; time and every molecule paused for that second that stretches for hours. They stare at one another, hesitating. It’s as if they’re standing at the edge of a building and the only parachute that can save them is the other.

Amy wants to look away, but she’s entranced by the look on his face. It's more shy than hesitant, his eyes downturned and brows furrowed, lining his face with worry. She wonders what he wants to say and urges him to speak, so she replies. "Yeah?" Her voice carries no strength despite her trying to fill it so, and it betrays her true emotions. The vowels and consonants fly out the window with the wind, too light to stand on their own. 

Jake pauses, something hidden in his eyes that Amy struggles to define, then says, “Never mind.” He lets out a nearly silent sigh and goes back to staring out into the night.

With that, Amy looks down at her lap and plays with her fingers. She struggles to make sense of what that was, of the look on his face, the tone of his voice, and the stuttering of her heart.

But, she knows what it was-another heavy confession she was to carry like Atlas and it makes absolutely no sense that she actually wishes she had heard it. 

When Amy looks up for a second, she meets his eyes and she sees that spark that lay in his eyes before. It's a mere spark, a twinkle, but it leaves as quickly as she spots it. So, she looks a back down to her hands and picks at her cuticles. 

That's when she starts to feel the flames starting to build, but she refuses to pay attention to it, ignores it as the flames begin to spark. It’s been heating up for a moment now, has been for nearly years now, but it is the first time she feels the growing heat.

There is not enough water to douse this fire; nothing left to stop it from growing and turning her beating heart to ash. 

And the fire grows.

And in him, it does, too.

* * *

_**stage two: growth**_. _the stage in which all the structures load with fire and the oxygen is used as fuel. the flashover is what quickly follows._

Maybe Amy should've called her mother earlier, seeing as it's almost midnight and since she was young her parents have been steadily going to bed at nine. But, she has to do this. This is her big romantic gesture. If she did this tomorrow, it wouldn't carry the same weight. She has to tell her mother that she no longer wants to be set up with colleagues of her brothers or with the sons of the dog sitter for her friend Linda's cousin.

Not anymore because she has someone to call her own. Someone who makes the blood inside her sing a loud symphony and someone that Amy is more than sure has owned her heart for a really long time. 

Just as she's owned his. 

Amy listens as the phone rings yet again and though part of her wants her mother's voicemail to greet her, she wishes that her mother would pick up her phone. She doesn't want to brag about Jake, not really, no, but she wants to tell her of every single part of her heart that he owns. 

And okay, she does want to brag about him a little.

Because how rare is it to find something such as this? To have the fireworks of pure joy burst within you whenever you see this special someone? To look at someone the same way that your parents use to do daily? 

Amy remembers being nine and ignoring her brothers pretending to barf as her dad kissed her mother before leaving for work. And even after her father turned and wished them all a good day, her mother's eyes did not stray from his retreating figure until every single piece of him was out of her eyesight.

Even at that young age, she understood what that was. It was love.

And now, maybe, she has that.

That love. That cloying, everlasting, much-too-strong, hard to contain love. Though it is such a heavy word that comes with the full on weight that strikes a minor chord of fright. It's not the first time she's thought it, but it is the first time she hasn't pushed away such thought. 

She never told Teddy she loved him, and even if she did, she would've been lying. She didn't love Teddy, at least not this way. It was if being with Teddy was nothing but ashes pretending to be fire. The flames nothing but cheap plastic alit with a bulbing light. The little embers not comparable to the forest fire that Jake has lit up.

And then, her mom answers, her voice heavy with sleep.

“Mom, I have to tell you something,” she begins and she curls up deeper into her bed, ready to tell her mother of the glowing fire and just how she doesn't want to extinguish it. She can't wait to tell her just how much she loves Jake Peralta.

And soon, she thinks, she will tell him, too.

* * *

_**the flashover.** _ **__**_though not an official stage, this is the sudden burst of flame caused by intense heat. uncertain and surprising, this stage is deadly._

Amy awakes at once, hands blindly searching towards the empty space beside her, but she knows it's empty.The bed sheets are cold, as they've been for weeks now. Still, she clutches the white sheet, balling it up in her palm for a moment and then letting her hand go limp. The cotton wrinkles from the strength of her hand, leaving the imprint of her nails. 

Her hand stretches again, this time more calmly as strokes the cold beside her and she sighs. 

She rolls over, facing the empty space. The nightmare that woke her from her sleep is long gone and what replaces it is an intense sadness as she stares at the empty space.

Jake has been gone for five weeks now, and she still hasn’t gotten used to the cold beside her.

Despite him being gone for a few weeks, she doesn't stray from her side of the bed, her body so used to him being near her and occupying that space with his heat. The bed seems bigger now, wider, as if it's been stretched out into a massive landscape. Before, she almost rolled onto the floor as his lanky limbs took ownership but now, there's too much space and not nearly enough bodies to occupy it. She wonders how she ever slept alone.

She remembers that nightmare of an afternoon in the courthouse and the verdict that felt like a guillotine to her neck. The flashing reality that almost crushed her. It was over. All of it was over.

Fifteen years for a crime he hadn't committed. 

You see things like these happen on television or in films, but it's something so trivialized that you never think it would ever happen to you. She wants to laugh at the irony of it all. Here they are, making a career out of putting criminals in jail and here was Jake, being put away for a crime he didn't commit. 

It was a crazy twist of fate; one trick to show just how unfunny life was.

And just when things were settling down between them, her singular apartment turned into a home. Their home. 

The fire that burned between them quickly setting everything ablaze around them and leaving Amy alone to struggle through the flaming rubble. The all-too-familiar fire no longer safe or comforting, but a strange phenomenon that made her weak. The intense heat threatening to topple the foundation of their relationship.

In the stillness of the room, Amy sighs as she remembers waking up at three a.m. just a month ago on a night such as tonight. She remembers reaching over and feeling him next to her, so whole and warm. Jake being her only her comfort. And despite the fire that nearly incapacitates her, she misses the heat of his body.

* * *

_**stage three: fully developed**_. _the growth stage has reached the max capacity. the hottest phase of a fire._

There's a minuscule lull in their wedding after-party that gives Amy just enough time to step away. The bar is packed with the people they invited to their impromptu reception, like their parents, Kylie, and some of Amy's officers. She's beelines her way to the closet, not paying attention to any of the beckoning waves or calls. She's a girl on a mission, and that mission is meeting up with her new husband. 

The closet that is their meeting space is loosely hidden by the restrooms, an old closet that Hank stores expired food in. Their actual after-wedding meetup was not a dingy closet, but an empty room adjacent to the venue decorated by vanilla candles and bundles of roses. But, like everything having to do with her wedding so far, it fell apart. 

She steps into the room, not pausing by the door or knocking. She's desperate to see Jake and to be alone with him for the first time in hours. She craves being next to her husband without the heat of other bodies around them.

She closes the door quickly after her, turning and coming face-to-face with Jake, who sits atop an old dusty box of expired pretzels. He's missing his suit jacket, and his tie is loose around his neck, making him look relaxed and soft. She stares at him for a second, drinking him in, and despite their current setting, this is one of the romantic experiences of her life. 

He's staring lovingly, holding two glasses of crappy off-brand champagne and a smile on his face. Amy's entire body relaxes when he reaches over to hand her the champagne and their hands touch. This is what she's been looking forward to. Not the party or the dances or even the dress, but just being alone with him. Just the two of them, as now they're bound to be forever. 

She sits on the box he arranged next to him, smile not fading.

"We really haven't had time to be alone, huh?" He asks.

"Yeah," she sighs and tips her champagne glass with his, making the glass clink. "But now we do. All thanks to you."

She was surprised when he suggested it before, though it was something so in character for him. His idea of a simple moment after their wedding, where they could toast silently and could spend a moment away from all the noise. A moment in which they could share their love for one another without any interruptions.

Just the two of them. As it was now and forever supposed to be. 

"Do you remember that Roland case?" he asks after a moment.

"The one where the man murdered the woman he said was his soulmate because she was dating someone else?"

"Yep," he says. "Do you remember what I said?"

She scours her mind for a second and smiles as she remembers. "That you didn't understand why he had murdered her because soulmates weren't real."

"Let's not gloss over that fact that the whole soulmates thing bothered me more than the murder itself," she interrupts him with a laugh, and he grins. "Do you remember your reaction?"

"Yeah," she grins, remembering her shocked reaction to his words and how she had argued that her parents were soulmates and how wrong he was. He had blown a raspberry at her and had said that every person on Earth thought that. 

"Even I used to think that," he had said. "But now I have two divorced parents." With that, he had walked away and at his retreating back Amy had said,"You think that now, Jake, but one day you're going to meet someone who will make you eat your words."

"Doubt it," he had said, throwing a teasing look at her over his shoulder. This was before them, before Holt, before Sophia, or Teddy. This was when the mere thought of being with Jake seemed unfathomable and downright ridiculous.

"I was very wrong," He says now with a small laugh. Amy squeezes his hand, leaning her head onto his shoulder. "I was so wrong." he pauses. "But....time passed by and I've changed my tune. And now, our kids are going to be those kids that argue that their parents really are soulmates."

"And they'll be right." She closes her eyes against his shoulder, losing herself in the warmth of him.

“I can't believe it actually happened,” He says after a moment. “It seemed so impossible earlier today.” She picks up her head from his shoulder, finding Jake's eyes looking so deeply into hers.

Something burns bright every time that she looks at him and every time that she looks at him, that fire is reignited again and again. This isn't the eye of any storm, but the rising violence of a fire roaring around them and there isn't any place she'd rather be than here with him.

"That soulmates thing was part of my vows I cut out. I didn’t want to tell you in front of everybody. This is just something that I wanted us to know," he says, leaning his head down against hers and Amy leans in, kisses him. If you told her that one day she'd be sitting in an old stuffy closet with Jake Peralta, her new husband, listening to him recite vows that he didn't copy from Yahoo!Answers, she'd wonder when she had gone crazy.

They say that the day of your wedding you don't even get to taste your own wedding cake with everything going on. She doesn't care if she doesn't eat or drink anything other than this crappy champagne she's still holding, because this, here, is what really matters. . 

As they separate, they share a smile and Amy is glad for this moment alone. Glad she married him. 

And, okay, maybe she really is a little crazy. For him.

* * *

_**stage four: decay.** the longest stage of a fire in which the oxygen is decreased and thus ends the fire. though, if not properly extinguished this fire could be relit._

Alicia has been sick for a few days; it is not too serious, nothing but an ear infection. Alicia is one and a half however, and far too young to articulate what hurts correctly. The only way she can express her emotions are with piercing cries. Piercing cries to awake Amy in the middle of the night, just as they do now. Amy wakes with a start, almost tripping over her own feet as she runs down the hall to her daughter's room.

Alicia is already standing, facing the door, holding out her chubby arms for her mother. Amy carries her into her arms at once, pushing her sweaty hair down until her cries quiet down to little hiccups. 

"Is she okay?" Jake asks from the door, surprising Amy. 

Amy nods and turns away from the door, and from him. "Yeah, she's fine." 

Jake stands at the door for a moment more, staring after her and then he leaves, his footsteps quiet in the night. Amy relaxes, pressing her daughter closer to her chest. Things have been awkward between them for about a month now. It's all started with a fight about who was to pick up dinner that should've ended right then and there but with neither of them giving in, it never ended. 

Now, Amy didn't know what to do anymore, and it seemed too late to bring it up, so it became a blaring thing in the corner of the room neither of them could avoid or speak about.

After a few minutes, Amy feels the gentle breathing of her daughter on her neck and slowly lowers her down to her crib. 

She covers her with her pink blankie and watches her for a moment, silently tracing her sleeping features with her eyes. Alicia looked so much like Jake when she slept that it almost made her heart burst. She remembered the first time she held her daughter and looked into her eyes. Even then, she knew that she would be the spitting image of her father and that she would do anything in this world to protect her. 

When Amy had her first daughter, Fiona, she would spend hours staring at her over her crib. Jake would wake up and find her gone in the middle of the night and would continually find her in Fiona’s room. He would join her and wrap his arms around her and silently they would watch as their daughter slept. When Alicia was born, they would do the same thing, just stare as she dreamt.

But that was some time ago. Now, Fiona is seven, no longer the sleeping baby with the big, brown eyes. 

And now, things are strange between her and Jake and it’s just her who watches Alicia sleep. It scares her to wonder where all of this will lead. 

Alicia lets out a little hum and turns over her in her crib. Amy takes this as her cue to leave and tiptoes out the room. She crawls back into bed, trying not to make any noise as to not wake Jake, but he says, "She asleep?"

"Yes," she answers, bringing the sheet up to her neck. She faces the wall, giving him her back and the sheet rustles as Jake jostles to find a good spot in bed. She closes her eyes when he stops, ready to sleep, but he starts up again.

“Jake.”

"Sorry." The room quiets then, with Jake's jostling of the bed over and the only sound that remains is the distant ticktock of the clock in the living room. Amy is so near to sleep when Jake shifts, awaking her. She sighs in annoyance, ready to tell him to quit it when she feels the weight of his arm wrapping itself around her waist. It slithers until his warmth wraps her like a cocoon. 

She opens her eyes then, confused by this sudden movement, but freezes, not wanting to disrupt the feeling that she'd almost forgotten. It's been so long that he's held her like this and warmed her up from head to toe. 

She closes her eyes, hoping that he doesn't remove himself from her and only opens them at the feel of his breath on his hair. She feels him hesitate them, hears the loud swallow of nervousness. 

"Jake, what-"

"I'm sorry," he interrupts. "I know we've been having a rough time and I know I should've apologized sooner but-"

"Jake-" She says and turns towards him, but stops, startled by his nearness. He's closer than she'd anticipated and it lights those fireworks deep inside her. He's so close that she can see the flecks of gold in his eyes and she swallows thickly now, taken aback for a moment. "It's nobody's fault," she says weakly after a moment. "It was a stupid fight. We both could've resolved it sooner."

"Yeah," he agrees and they still like this for a moment, both not wanting to move. He purses his lips and says, "It just grew and you kept getting more distant and I was so scared-"

"Shh," she presses her finger to his lips, quieting him. "I know. Me, too." He takes her finger and presses a light kiss to it, as if testing the heat of the water. Amy doesn't react, hoping not to scare him away. The truth is, she wants more than a simple kiss to her finger. So much more. 

He slowly leans in and kisses her. Amy's a little struck by it, but then, she quickly comes back to Earth and kisses him back. It's been a little while since they've had sex, not very long, but long enough for her to feel the familiar urge prickling her skin very quickly. She deepens the kiss, bringing him closer, hoping to burn with him. Jake resists, however, and pulls away. Amy licks her lips, staring at him hungrily as he stares down at her.

"What?"

"You want to hear what Fiona told me?" 

"Sure," she says, one hand falling from Jake's cheek to his shoulder. She squeezes once and he smiles.

"She says that there are five stages of a fire. Well, four official stages, but she counts five. Something about a flashover or whatever. She says that it's important to know all five so you know how to extinguish them and don't die."

"Is that what they're teaching them in elementary school now?"

"She said she learned that on her own. Borrowed some book from the library or something."

"That kid," she says with a smile. "She's so much like you."

"Like me? She's so much like you," he retorts and Amy snorts. "I didn't even know where the library was when I was a kid."

"As long as we can agree that Alicia is you personified."

"Oh, most definitely." He strokes the side of her face slowly, Amy leans into it like a cat. “In the end, she says the fire dwells, and the decay of its destruction is left.”

Amy’s taken aback by his words, and stays quiet for a second, then, "What happens if a fire isn’t put out?” 

He shrugs, "Fire always goes out on its own, unless you keep feeding it and keeping it alive.” 

“Mhmm,” she says and Jake leans in, kisses her slowly. This time, she’s the one who pulls away. “There’s a waterfall in Pennsylvania we went when I was a kid and there’s a fire hidden behind the water that never goes out. Nobody knows how it stays lit, but it’s been there for hundreds of years. Maybe thousands.”

He smiles down at her, and they share a brief kiss. “Behind the waterfall?”

“Yes. How ironic, huh? A fire protected by a thick sheet of water.”

“Yeah."

Amy sees the familiar look on his face and leans in to kiss him. There are no more conversations started anymore, just the familiar feeling of being in each other’s arms. And Amy remembers their wedding ten years ago, the first time she told him that she loved him, the day she realized that she didn’t just see him as her partner, and she thinks of that fire in Pennsylvania. How it burned and how her father had told her the name of the falls. 

”Eternal Flame Falls,” he had said and Amy wondered how something could burn for so long. But now, she knew. She had a love that would burn longer than that waterfall and though sometimes it can grow smaller, it will never go out. It doesn’t have a water curtain to preserve it, but it has Amy and Jake, and they’re more than enough. 

**_the relighting_**. _after the decay, any heat leftover may once again be relit by the source of a simple backdraft. sometimes, even the smallest of smoldering embers could relight the harshest of fires._

**Author's Note:**

> i got the whole secret-toast idea from Steph's article, who got the idea from the most romantic couple on earth, Joanna and Andy.  
> It has been a while since i've written and i'm so glad to have this up. please tell me what you thought in the comments.


End file.
